Quotes by Thomas Merton

About Thomas Merton:

Thomas Merton was an American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

Thomas Merton

Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.

Thomas Merton

Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.

Thomas Merton

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

Thomas Merton

I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.

Thomas Merton

We do not exist for ourselves.

Thomas Merton

We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.

Thomas Merton

Wheels of fire, cosmic, rich, full-bodied honest victories over desperation.

Thomas Merton
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Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.

Thomas Merton

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.

Thomas Merton

When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.

Thomas Merton

Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist.

Thomas Merton

But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.

Thomas Merton

Pardon all runners, All speechless, alien winds, All mad waters. Pardon their impulses, Their wild attitudes, Their young flights, their reticence. When a message has no clothes on How can it be spoken.

Thomas Merton

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

Thomas Merton

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.

Thomas Merton

First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individua...

Thomas Merton

He's not a safe safe or a tame God, securely lodged behind the bars of a distant Heaven; He has the most annoying manner of showing up when we least want Him; of confronting us in the strangest ways.

Thomas Merton

New eyes awaken. I send Love's name into the world with wings And songs grow up around me like a jungle. Choirs of all creatures sing the tunes Your Spirit played in Eden. Zebras and antelopes and birds of paradise Shine on the face of the abyss And ...

Thomas Merton

To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude ...

Thomas Merton

Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.

Thomas Merton

Author Bio

  • NameThomas Merton
  • DescriptionPriest and author
  • BornJanuary 31, 1915
  • DiedDecember 10, 1968
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionTheologian; Poet; Essayist; Autobiographer; Writer